Kanyi Okeke
Over 137 people have been killed and hundreds more injured when explosions rocked three churches and two hotels in Sri Lanka on Sunday morning as Christians celebrated Easter.
Three churches in Kochchikade, Negombo and Batticaloa were targeted during Easter services.
The Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury hotels, all in Colombo, were also hit.
Images on social media showed the inside of one of the churches – St Sebastian’s in Negombo – with a shattered ceiling and blood on the pews.
There have been “many casualties including foreigners,” tweeted Sri Lankan MP Harsha de Silva.
De Silva said two locations of the explosions were Kochchikade church and Shangri-La Hotel in Kingsbury, Colombo.
The bodies of the dead have been received at Colombo National Hospital, according to hospital sources. Most of those injured were also taken there, hospital officials said.
Easter Sunday is one of the major feasts in the Christian calendar.
This is a developing story, more updates to come.
